


The Pomeranian Effect

by LittlePlumTree



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 02:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2605913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittlePlumTree/pseuds/LittlePlumTree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Take Steve, Bucky, one nice neighbourhood, one prying landlord and the Pomeranian pup from hell. Mix well. Bucky is still pinching himself over the outcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pomeranian Effect

The morning air is fresh and cool against Steve's skin as he leans on his mailbox. The neighbourhood is just waking up, curtains being drawn and newspapers collected from doorsteps. He raises a hand to wave at Grumpy Old Man Pierce across his driveway, and is decidedly ignored. Steve shakes his head, and is about to turn to go inside when the door of the house across the street opens and tall, dark and handsome walks out. Steve thinks back to the moving van he saw a couple of days earlier. So this is the new neighbour. Steve watches as he stoops to pick up his newspaper, and then straightens up to look right at Steve.

"Hi," the guy calls, waving his newspaper, and Steve smiles guiltily back at having been caught staring.

"Morning," he calls, and then the guy is walking across the road towards him. Steve pushes himself off the letterbox and holds out a hand. "Steve Rogers, pleased to meet you."

"James Barnes, but everyone calls me Bucky," the guy says with an easy smile, and Steve feels his heart do a little twang inside his chest at the sound of another Brooklyn accent. And, hold on, hadn’t Natasha talked about a Bucky?

"Not Natasha's Bucky?" Steve asks, and Bucky laughs, casting a glance back across the street to the house next to his.

"Well I wouldn't say that, but yeah, we go way back." He flashes Steve a grin, and then a flurry of barks starts up somewhere across the street. Bucky turns to look at his house, muttering something that sounds like "crazy animal" under his breath. "Sorry pal, I gotta go. Real nice to meet you, Steve."

"You too, Bucky," Steve replies, and then watches as Bucky hastens back to his own house, shoving the newspaper in his back pocket as he goes. He does have a very nice butt, Steve thinks absently, and then quickly averts his eyes. Grumpy Old Man Pierce is eying him suspiciously from his own mail box, and Steve gives him an overly-cheery smile before going inside.

 

Bucky has to admit, this was not how he saw his morning going. His landlord surprised him with a text not ten minutes ago saying he was in the neighbourhood, and would Bucky mind if he brought 'round the last few papers to sign for the lease? Bucky had replied yes without thinking, and then looked down at his feet to see Dave the Pomeranian smiling up at him with his little doggy grin, and panicked. The lease is very specific. No pets.

Technically Bucky is breaking plenty of rules by having Dave here, but his sister had been adamant that she wasn't leaving him in a kennel, and after living in her spare room for almost a year, Bucky feels like he owes her this favour. And really, he'd thought, how much trouble can the little guy be?

"I was so wrong," Bucky says down to the dog at his feet, and then scoops him up under his arm and hightails it out the door.

 

Natasha had been the one to recommend Bucky to the owner of this place (which he is trying very hard not to fuck up, thank you very much) and he enjoys knowing he has her right next door. But when Bucky knocks on Nat's door with the dog, she opens it, sees him, sees Dave, and says, "Absolutely not."

"Aw, c'mon Nat," Bucky wheedles. "He's in a really well-behaved mood today."

"Even if I believed you, which I don't, I have a meeting in town in twenty minutes and you are not leaving him in my house unattended."

Dave wags his little tail and flails his little legs and gazes up at her from Bucky's arms, and she gives in to a moment of weakness and gives the dog a quick scratch behind his ears before retreating into her house.

"Good luck with him!" she calls to Bucky as the door shuts in his face.

The clock on his phone tells him he has approximately 5 minutes before the landlord is due. He looks over at Grumpy Old Man Pierce's place, one of the only other neighbours he's met since moving in, and decides he isn't even going to try. He's been here a week and already been yelled at twice when Dave strayed onto the old man's lawn.

Bucky weighs his options. His car is away getting the rattle in the dashboard fixed until tomorrow, his sister's place is miles away, and he's down to 4 minutes. He eyes the neat little house across the street, with its carefully mown lawn and blue-painted shutters. Steve had seemed the type of guy who would love to spend an hour with Dave. Surely.

 

Steve almost drops his toast when the knocking on his door starts. He lives in a respectable neighbourhood, isn't expecting visitors, and more to the point has only just woken up from his one-day-a-week sleep-in. He puts the toast down, wiping the crumbs on his rumpled pajama pants and crosses his little yellow kitchen into the hallway to pull open the front door. He really isn't expecting to be greeted with an armful of Pomeranian, being thrust at him by none other than his newly-acquainted neighbour.

For some reason, Steve takes the dog without question, holding the wriggling little body against the white cotton V-neck he sleeps in. Bucky is babbling and running a hand through his hair and looking so harried that Steve's starting to feel stressed himself.

"I'm so sorry, I wouldn't do this unless I really had no other options, he's my sister's dog and I'm meant to be looking after him until she gets back from her trip but my landlord is coming 'round today at really short notice and I'm not allowed pets and he's gonna be here in exactly three minutes-"

Steve tries to hold up a hand to stop him, but then almost drops the dog and decides better of it. He smiles instead and cuts him off. "Hey, slow down. It's fine, you can leave him here until your landlord's done."

Bucky breathes a visible sigh of relief. "Thanks pal, really, thanks so much. I'm so sorry to do this, I just didn't know what to do with him and then I tried to lock him in the bathroom and then he started barking and-"

Steve shifts the still squirming dog in his arms and smiles again. "It's no trouble. We'll have fun. What's his name?"

"Uh, it's, um, Dave," Bucky says, ducking his head and smirking a little. Steve chokes on a laugh.

"Right. Well then, Dave and I will be right here when you're done."

"Thanks man, really, I'll make it up to you, thanks so much." He's backing off the steps and glancing over to his own driveway where a car is already pulling up. "I'll be back in an hour! I'm sorry!" He grimaces back at him over shoulder and then goes to greet the landlord getting out of his car.

Steve smiles, and then steps back inside with the dog. With Dave. So this was the culprit of the mysterious barking that had called Bucky away the day they’d met.

Steve puts him down and the little bundle of fluff immediately takes off across the hall and into the kitchen. He follows to find him staring up at the table at Steve's toast. Steve snorts and shakes his head. "Not for you, sorry." The dog looks at him dolefully, and Steve tries to ignore him as he spreads butter onto the toast.

An hour later, a knock on the door makes Steve look up from his wrestle with Dave over one of his slippers, and Dave senses the moment of distraction and manages to yank the shoe from Steve's grasp and take off with it down the hall. Getting dressed had been an experience, with Dave trying to steal every item of clothing Steve had taken out of the closet, and running off with his shoes when he got bored of that.

Steve sighs and lets him go, and goes to open the door. Bucky is standing on the other side, looking just as handsome but a lot more guilty, and Steve smiles. "Hey, how'd it go?"

"Oh, fine, yeah. There was a bit of a sticky moment where he almost saw the water bowl but I kicked it under the sofa just in time."

"Good thinking," Steve says, amused.

"I hope Dave wasn't too much trouble?"

"Not at all," Steve lies. He moves slightly in the doorway so Bucky won't see his destroyed living room. It's nothing permanent, but the couch cushions are awry and there are shoes all over the floor and paintbrushes tipped from their cup on the windowsill, and at that moment Dave himself comes trotting back down the hall. He sticks his head through Steve's legs and looks up at Bucky, tongue lolling out. Steve looks down, and then up into Bucky's blue, blue eyes and says, "Do you wanna come in?"

Steve herds him past the entrance to the messy living room and into the kitchen, offering him a seat at the table. "Want something to drink?"

"Do you have coffee?" Bucky asks with a smile.

Steve nods, and tears his eyes away from Bucky's perfect hair to flick on the jug.

"I'm so sorry for just dumping Dave on you like that," Bucky starts. "It was all so last minute and that place is the best I've ever lived in and I sure don't wanna lose it this early on."

"Really, I get it," Steve says. "It was kinda fun, actually." He might be pushing it a little with that comment, but anything that landed Bucky on Steve's doorstep wasn't going to be a bad thing in Steve's opinion.

"So he really wasn't any trouble?" Bucky asks, and Steve raises his eyebrows.

"He's an active little thing, I'll give you that. But nothing's broken and it gave me something to do this morning so really, you can stop thanking me. Happy to help."

Bucky smiles at him lopsidedly as Steve leans back on the counter, coffee now brewing behind him. "Okay, I'll stop. Just wanted to make sure you knew it wasn't some weird ploy to get to know my neighbours."

"You looked way too stressed for that to have been faked, don't worry," Steve laughs. "Milk? Sugar?" Bucky nods.

"Uh, both, please."

Steve snags the sugar from the shelf to his left and then places it on the table with the mugs, and then the milk. As Bucky moves to take the mug in his right hand and the sugar with his left, Steve's eye is caught by the slightly stilted way his left arm moves, and his gaze flicks down the sleeve of Bucky's sweater to his hand. It's the same colour as his other one, and at first Steve thinks perhaps it's an old injury, but then Bucky pulls up his sleeve and says, "Pretty good right?"

The arm is a prosthetic, and a very good one at that. The hand is made to look exactly like a real one, but the mechanical elbow joint is clear to see when Bucky gets his sleeve up over it, and for a second Steve forgets his embarrassment at being caught looking.

"Wow. That's- wow."

"StarkTech," Bucky says, wiggling his fingers in demonstration. "I was the guinea-pig."

"Jeez, that’s amazing,” Steve enthuses, and then catches himself. “I’m so sorry, I didn't mean to stare. You must get that a lot, I didn't-"

"Hey, don't worry about it. You're right, it happens a lot. Natural response. I'm used to it."

"It must be horrible to have people do that, though, so I'm sorry."

"I give you my weird dog, you stare at my weird arm. We're even, Steven," Bucky says with a grin that's infectious, and Steve smiles back.

"Yeah, alright."

Bucky adds the sugar to his coffee and Steve pours milk into his, and says, "So how long are you babysitting Dave for?"

"Another few weeks," Bucky says wryly. "He's not too bad, my sister just spoils him rotten. As for that name... Who in their right mind calls a dog like that 'Dave'?"

 

Steve laughs. "I don't know, it kind of suits him."

"If I'd known the landlord was coming a little sooner I could have taken him somewhere else, but it was all a bit short notice."

Steve takes a sip of his coffee and then says, "Well if you ever need to get him out of the way temporarily, I work from home, so I'm always around."

"Thanks, pal, I might just take you up on that," Bucky says, beaming at Steve over the top of his mug. "What's your work?"

"I'm an artist," Steve says. "Well, sort of. I illustrate books."

Bucky raises his eyebrows. "No way! That's pretty cool," he says, and Steve's mouth turns up in a wry smile.

"Well, it pays the bills. Just. What do you do?"

Bucky looks down at his coffee and then holds up his left arm. "At the moment? Not much. Honourable discharge."

Steve's throat closes up a little and he can feel himself going red. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

"You didn't, you asked a perfectly reasonable question," Bucky says and smiles reassuringly, and Steve likes the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles. "Stop blushing, pal, it's not a sore point anymore."

Steve, of course, blushes harder now Bucky has pointed it out, but he relaxes again, swirling the coffee round in his mug. They're distracted by Dave running into the kitchen with one of Steve's shoes, a nondescript looking sneaker Steve can't remember when he last wore, and looking pretty proud of himself. Bucky makes a little gasping sound and grabs at the shoe but Dave is off and out of the kitchen before he can reach him.

Bucky takes off in pursuit, calling back, "I'm so sorry, Steve, I'll take him home, he's not normally such a little shit, I'm so sorry-" and then he cuts off abruptly. Steve gets up from the table, wincing a little at what he knows Bucky's found, and goes to join him out in the hallway. Bucky is standing in the doorway to the living room, staring slack-jawed at the mess. Eventually he grimaces and turns to Steve.

"Gonna take a wild stab in the dark and say it doesn't normally look like this?"

Steve shoves his hands in his pockets and tries to keep the laugh that's bubbling up from escaping and says, "Not so much."

Half an hour later, Dave is tied to the leg of the kitchen table by a piece of string, Steve's living room is back to normal, and Bucky has apologized a little under a hundred times.

"I'm making you dinner to make up for it. Tomorrow night, dinner, my place. Dave will be on his best behaviour." Bucky's standing on Steve's doorstep, Dave held tightly under his arm, little legs still running in mid-air and his tongue is lolling out.

 

"You really don't have to, it's fine, it wasn't that bad," Steve tries to say, and Bucky shakes his head.

"I don't care, I still feel bad. I mean, unless you have plans, or..."

Steve smiles. "No, I'm free. Dinner sounds great. But you can't stop me bringing desert."

Bucky grins. "Fine. Seven okay?"

"Seven it is," Steve replies, and watches as Bucky retreats down the front steps and back to his own house, calling over his shoulder, "Also, I'm sorry!"

"It's still fine!" Steve yells back.

 

Bucky slams the door of his house and deposits the small furry beast from hell down on the mat. The little dog trots off down the hall and Bucky calls after it, "Yeah, you run!" He leans back on the closed door and sighs, letting his head fall against the wood with a thud.

When he's recovered from the probable post-traumatic stress of befriending the most attractive guy in the whole neighbourhood, perhaps even the whole city, and then setting loose a demon into his house to destroy his life, he goes into the kitchen. Talk about first impressions.

Steve's house had been so neat (well, apart from the room Dave had savaged) that Bucky had expected some sort of female influence. He'd looked carefully for a sign of a girlfriend, a wife even, but there were no pictures that alluded to it. Perhaps Steve really was just that neat. Bucky had felt something a little like relief at the almost zero signs of Steve having a romantic interest.

Don't be silly, he tells himself. Guy like that's gotta have someone. Don't get your hopes up.

He leans back on the counter in his kitchen, and sighs as a thud and a bark from upstairs tells him Dave is back in the laundry basket. And what in God's name is he going to cook tomorrow night?

 

Bucky lasts until just after dinner to satisfy his curiosity. Natasha opens her door on the third knock, towel wrapped around her head and a dressing gown on, one eyebrow raised. "I knew letting you live near me was a bad idea." Bucky just grins and steps past her into the house.

"Come in," Nat mutters redundantly. Bucky hadn't felt the need to wait for an invitation. He plants himself on a stool at the kitchen counter and swivels around to face her.

"Tell me about Steve Rogers," he says.

Natasha smiles knowingly. "Why?"

 

"Because I'm really interesting in taking up needlepoint and he looks like the type of guy who'd be into that," Bucky replies, rolling his eyes.

"Nice deflection," Nat says. "Okay, I'll humour you. He's an artist, single as far as I know, likes cats."

"How do you know?" Bucky asks.

"He always stops to pat them when he goes running," Natasha says, smirking and opening her fridge to pull out a pottle of yoghurt.

Bucky sighs and tries again. "How do you know he's single?"

"He’s never talked about anyone in that way, hardly ever goes out, and I've met all the friends he deems worthy to invite over, so I'd say I'm around 80% sure there is nobody special."

"Why have you met all his friends?" Bucky asks. "Are you guys close?"

"I guess. We have lasagna Thursdays and sometimes we carpool into town."

"Lasagna Thursday?" Bucky asks, incredulous. "Nat, did you never think it was appropriate to tell me you've befriended someone who looks like he was sculpted by the gods and is probably single?"

Natasha looks up from her yoghurt all wide eyed and says, feigning innocence, "Oh, do you find him attractive?"

"Why do I like you, again?" Bucky asks, jumping down off the stool and going to her cupboard.

"Because you need someone around to match your levels of snark?"

Bucky snorts and stares into the cupboard of food until he hears her throw away the yoghurt container and leave the kitchen. He grabs an apple off the shelf and follows Nat up the stairs, trying to avoid the droplets of water coming off her head as she towels her hair dry.

"So do you know if he's straight?"

"How would I know that, James?" Nat asks coyly, opening the door to her bedroom and switching on the light. Bucky follows her in and throws himself down on the bed.

"Well, have you and Steve ever turned Lasagna Thursday into..." He does a weird little shimmy where he's lying, and Natasha snorts.

"No, we have not. And I don't know anything about his love life. He doesn't talk about it."

Bucky thinks for a while, watching as Natasha closes the drapes and finishes toweling her hair. "Maybe he's asexual?" Bucky muses. "That would explain the lack of love life."

"Maybe," Nat agrees. "Or maybe he's got some history. Don't rush in guns blazing. There might be a reason he doesn't talk about it." 

Bucky sighs. "Maybe he's just a private person."

"Maybe. I mean, for all he knows I could be any of those things. We just don't talk about that stuff."

"What do you talk about?" Bucky asks.

"The weather. Our herb gardens."

Bucky looks at her in horror and Natasha cracks up. "God, I'm kidding." She goes to her wardrobe and pulls out a nighty, and Bucky stares at the ceiling, taking bites out of his apple while she changes.

"So I'm cooking him dinner tomorrow night," Bucky says, and sits up. Natasha stares at him, eyebrow raised.

"What did you do?" she asks.

"It wasn't me! In fact, it's your fault. If you'd taken Dave he wouldn't have made such a mess of Steve's living room and then I wouldn't have felt bad and accidentally invited him to dinner."

"Well he agreed to dinner, so you can't have been that bad."

"That's not the issue. What do I cook?" Bucky flails his arms to add weight to his point and tries to ignore the way Natasha is smirking as she sits down at her dresser, eying him in the mirror.

"If it goes wrong you could feed it to Dave," Nat suggests, and Bucky snorts. "Speaking of which, where is Dave?"

"Locked in the guest bedroom. There's only so much he can destroy in there," Bucky says grimly.

"Well, perhaps you and Steve will bond over how badly behaved that dog is," Nat says, and Bucky flops back onto the bed. "And hey, if you screw this up, I'll invite you to lasagna Thursday."

Bucky hurls a pillow at her, and goes home.

 

Steve goes for his morning run as usual, and about halfway through it, it starts to rain. He takes a shortcut back to his house but by the time he reaches it, he's drenched anyway. He has to pass Natasha's house to get to his own, and as he does her front door is flung open and she yells, "Rogers!" over the sound of the rain. Steve slows and turns in at her gate, jogging up her front steps and under the shelter of the porch.

"Hey, Natasha," he says, squinting out at the rain. "Guess I didn't time that very well." 

"Get in here, I just made coffee," Nat says, ushering him through the door despite Steve's protests that his house is "right over there, Nat, I don't wanna drip on your floor."

She ignores him, putting a mug of coffee down on the table in front of Steve, and then going to fetch him a towel. Steve smiles and takes it appreciatively, scrubbing it over his hair and then drying off his arms and shoulders. The shirt is clinging to his torso, soaked through from the rain, and Natasha thinks it's a shame Bucky isn't there.

Steve takes a large swig of coffee and then sits down at the table. "Thanks," he says. "Crazy how the weather changes on you."

"You're welcome," Nat says, pulling out the chair opposite and sitting with a coffee of her own. "How's the illustrating coming along?"

"Slowly," Steve sighs. He's been working on the same book for far too long, changing his mind and redoing the pages over and over, perfectionist 'till the end. "Almost done. They need it in before next week, and I'm juggling that as well as a painting for the VA office that Sam asked me to do, plus a couple of orders off the website, so I've got plenty to do."

Natasha nods. "Well I know how you like to keep busy."

Steve smiles wryly. "Apparently so."

"And I hear you met the new neighbour," Nat says innocently, leaning her elbows on the table and warming her hands on her mug.

"I did," Steve says. "You kept very quiet about that one."

"Well we weren't sure he was going to get it until right before he moved in, and you bailed on me last Lasagna Thursday," Nat teases.

Steve looks mildly guilty. "Sorry, it was a real painting emergency, the red just wouldn't mix with the blue, and-" Nat cuts him off with a thwack on the arm, and Steve laughs. "I told Sam you'd be mad, but he dragged me off to his VA thing anyway."

"Don't pretend you don't enjoy it," Natasha says, smirking. "Always off listening to war stories and patting old ladies' hands."

"You should try it. Maybe tell a few stories of your own."

Laughing, Natasha replies, "There aren't many stories I'm authorized to tell. Special Ops is secretive for a reason."

"You trained with Bucky, right?" Steve asks, suddenly curious as to how they got to know each other.

"Basic, yeah. They pulled the two of us out a few months later for more specialized training, but we were friends from the beginning. Then after his accident, he needed someone who knew what it had been like. That was me."

Steve nods, and not for the first time he's heard Nat talk about Bucky he wonders if they'd ever been more than she's letting on. Nat is looking at him knowingly, and for a second Steve panics that they teach mind reading in Special Ops, until Natasha says, "So you met Dave, too?"

"Oh, I did indeed meet Dave. Boy, that's one hell of a trouble maker Bucky's got on his hands."

"Tell me about it," Natasha huffs. "Little shit destroyed my second favourite heels, knocked over both my CD racks, hid my umbrella and ate my entire parsley pot. In the space of an afternoon. I think he's Satan reborn."

Steve chokes on a laugh and tries to look sympathetic. "That's pretty bad," he says, and Natasha rolled her eyes.

"When you go 'round tonight, see if you can slip it some Rescue Remedy or something. Might calm it down a bit."

Steve looks up at her. "Bucky filled you in on that?"

"Oh, he mentioned it," Natasha replies causally.

Steve sighs. "Did he tell you I offered to make desert?"

"No. Did you?"

Steve looks up at her dolefully. "Unfortunately. What do I make?"

Natasha stares at him for a minute, feeling a terrible sense of Deja vu, and then has to try very hard to stifle a smile. Boys.

 

Bucky can cook. Well, he can cook toast. And pasta. And tea, he can make tea. But other than that, he can admit he's not particularly proficient in the kitchen. Living with his sister had meant many nights of takeout and a few hilarious attempts at imitating Jamie Oliver on the cooking channel together, but apart from that, Bucky is a little out of his depth. He has visions of whipping up something like chicken cordon bleu, or a vegetable casserole, but the clock is telling him it's a quarter to six and eggs on toast is looking more and more likely by the second.

A rummage around in his cupboard produces nothing of any use, and Bucky is just about to give in and run to Natasha when he turns and sees Dave sitting on a kitchen chair, watching.

"What?" Bucky asks, and Dave just looks at him. "I can cook. I can do this."

The assurance doesn't seem to affect Dave, but Bucky feels a little better for it. He turns back to the cupboard and nothing has miraculously appeared, but when he turns back around, Dave is now on the table.

"You are a menace," Bucky says sternly. "Get down, we're going to the grocery store."

The store is just around the corner, and so Bucky herds Dave into the car, now with dashboard rattle fixed, thank God, and turns out into the street. Driving had been a hard skill to get back after the loss of his arm, but Bucky has never been the sort to give up on something, and had relished the thought of gaining some of his independence back. Living with his sister would have been a little more than he could cope with if he couldn't leave whenever he felt like it.

The whole way to the grocery store Dave runs back and forth along the back seat, looking out of one window and panting, and then turning to run to the opposite window and do the same. Bucky humours him and rolls down the windows.

Twenty minutes later, Dave is sprinting back up the path to the house and Bucky is carrying a bag containing spaghetti, pasta sauce and a bottle of wine. The rain has stopped for now, but puddles lie on the ground and the sky is still steel grey.

 

Across the street, Steve is having a meltdown. His Banoffee pie is looking more like a Banoffee pile, with the biscuit a little too crumbly and the cream not quite whipped enough and the banana sitting uselessly on top. He sighs, looks around for an escape route, and eventually just scoops it all up and puts it in a bowl. It should taste the same. Probably.

 

Bucky puts the groceries down on the table and then looks up to see Dave whining at the door to the yard. He heaves a sigh and opens it, and the little dog scampers out into the mud. Too late to call him back, Bucky lets him go. He'll clean him later. His clock says twenty to seven. Perfect.

With the spaghetti boiling on the stove and the mince browning and tomato sauce on standby, Bucky stands back and admires how wrong the situation could have gone, but didn't. A little voice in his head is telling him it's actually pretty hard to fuck up spag bol, but he ignores it and revels in his success anyway. As a distraction from the increasing number of butterflies in his stomach, he sets the table, turns off the pasta, and then hears a scratching at the back door.

Knowing Dave will be covered in mud, Bucky grabs a tea-towel and then opens the door a crack, and as Dave shoots through it he grabs him and bundles him up in the towel. A vigorous rub down removes most of the mess, with most of the mud getting on Bucky instead of the towel, and then Bucky's clock tells him it's a quarter to seven and he should probably change.

Dave scuttles off to wreak havoc in some other part of the house, and Bucky goes upstairs. He decides black jeans are a good idea, purely because they are the only pair that he won't just be picking up off the floor, and they go with his green jumper. It takes a little longer than usual to get it on over his arm, and Bucky remembers why he doesn't wear it often. It looks okay, though. Five to seven.

He spends a few moments debating putting on shoes, and decides not to. He also shoves most of the mess on his floor under the bed, realizes he probably needn't have worried, and then goes back down to the kitchen. Best not to get his hopes up. It's only dinner.

He's just finished draining the spaghetti in a colander when there's a knock on the door. Bucky looks around for a place to put the pasta and eventually grabs an extra plate and sticks the colander on top of it on the table. He opens the front door to find Steve in a blue plaid button down with the sleeves rolled up, dark jeans and his hair pushed off to the side. He smiles, and Bucky forgets to breathe out.

 

"Hey," Steve says.

"Hey," Bucky says back. They smile at each other for a second before Bucky's breathing returns to normal and he steps aside and motions for Steve to come in.

Just as he steps into the hall and Steve says, "Crazy weather we're having", there comes a resounding clatter from the kitchen, the sound of something hitting the floor, and then the pitter-patter of little feet. Two seconds later, Dave trots past them with a long string of spaghetti clasped between his jaws dragging along the floor behind him.

As he disappears from view, Bucky just closes his eyes, breathes in, and then out, and when he opens them, Steve looking at him with an expression so earnest Bucky wants to laugh. They both step into the kitchen to see the colander on the floor, spaghetti everywhere, and small muddy footprints on the table top. Steve makes a noise that might be a sob, but could just as easily been a laugh, and Bucky pinches the bridge of his nose.

A moment passes, and then Steve says, "Shall we order takeout?"

Bucky gives up, and laughs.

 

I’m so glad I bought wine, Bucky thinks, as he watches Steve's eyes crinkle and his nose screw up as he laughs mercilessly over something Bucky's just said. Empty Chinese boxes are scattered over the coffee table, along with the empty bowl of Banoffee pie. Despite being a bit of a mess, it had tasted great. After the disaster that was the spaghetti, Bucky had said, Steve's desert was a triumph.

They've finished the first bottle of wine and are halfway through a second, some shitty cheap thing Bucky found at the top of his pantry, and Steve has kicked off his shoes and propped his legs up on Bucky's couch, and Bucky has pushed up the sleeves of his jumper and decided he doesn't care that his arm is obvious, because Steve doesn't seem to either.

"And then she just walked off?" Steve gets out in between gasps of laughter.

"Stamped on his toe and walked off," Bucky confirms, grinning and swirling the wine lazily around in his glass, sitting in one of the squishy sofa chairs opposite the couch.

"Oh, that's the Natasha I know, alright," Steve says, laughter subsiding. "I was so scared of her when I moved in."

"Oh man, I feel you there. You should see her when she's all uniformed up. She terrified every new recruit that came through the door, and loved every second of it. She's a softie really, but she could absolutely kill you with her little finger."

"And what about you, could you kill me with your little finger?" Steve asks, and Bucky doesn't think he's imagining the sly glance Steve flicks up and down his body as he speaks.

"Depends which arm," Bucky jokes, and then smiles down into his wine as Steve cracks up again.

 

By the time the thunder comes, they've finished the second bottle too. Dave comes tearing into the living room when the first rumble sounds, leaping up on the sofa to climb on top of Steve. Bucky snorts. "Oh, of course," he says, giving the dog a reproachful look. "Traitor."

Steve snorts and puts a hand on the little dog's head, patting his ears and calming him down while he talks. Bucky watches he way his finger scratch absently at the top of Dave's head, and for a second wishes he were a dog.

"I knew a dog that was terrified of storms," Steve says. "Used to actually climb right into your lap when it started, and he was not was small dog by any means. Peggy tried everything to calm him down but he never got over it. Your little guy isn't so bad by comparison."

"Peggy?" Bucky asks, wondering afterward if it's dangerous territory. Luckily, Steve smiles.

"Girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend now. She moved back to London a couple of years ago."

Bucky's good mood dissipates inside of him, and he tries not to convey it on his features. Of course he's straight, he thinks. Glad we got that cleared up.

"Yeah," Steve is saying, "it wasn't a great time." Clearly Bucky hasn't been particularly successful in schooling his features, but apparently Steve thinks it's in sympathy. "Funny how things work out though. When I was seeing her off at the airport, I met someone else. The relationship didn't last long, but me and Sam are still close so in the end it worked out for the best." Bucky nods, feigning interest, until Steve goes on. "He's the one who got me into the whole VA thing."

"Wait, he?" Bucky blurts, and Steve's smile falls of his face.

"Uh, yeah." The hand on Dave's head stills, and Steve is watching him, face suddenly expressionless.

"Funny," Bucky says, recovering fast. "I once dated a guy called Sam."

Steve's smile creeps back onto his face. "For both of our sakes, I hope not the same one," he says with a grin, and Bucky laughs.

Steve takes another sip of wine and Bucky watches, watches the way Steve's hair falls in his eyes and the way his forearms look with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, and the blue of his eyes when they look up to meet his gaze. Bucky looks back down into his wine glass.

"So, what do you do with your time?" Steve says. Dave is gnawing on his cuff and he gently extracts it from the little jaws as Bucky replies.

"Not a hell of a lot. Nat keeps trying to get me involved with support groups and volunteer projects and I mean to, I do, I just find it hard to... I don't know, get motivated I guess. Going from what I did to doing nothing at all, it's weird."

Steve is nodding earnestly. "Yeah, I can see how that would be hard. Hey, when you decide you wanna give it a go, Sam's really involved in the whole VA scheme. He's a counsellor, talks to people, runs support groups and all that. He'd be happy to help you get into it. I mean, if you want."

Bucky smiles appreciatively. "Thanks pal, that'd be great. I'll think about it."

Steve nods and pats Dave's head as another roll of thunder booms outside, and Bucky thinks how much he loves rain, loves the feeling of being safe and dry inside and watching the rivulets on the windows, and the sound on the roof. And then he looks at Steve again and thinks he likes how at home Steve looks on his couch, petting his dog and sharing his food and asking about Bucky's life. He hopes it never stops raining. He hopes Steve never finds reason to leave.

Of course Steve does find reason to leave, eventually. The rain calms down and the thunder stops and Dave patters off upstairs to Bucky's bed. Steve sighs and stretched his arms up over his head and gives Bucky a tired smile. "I'm sorry, it's late, I'm keeping you up."

Please keep doing so, Bucky thinks, and he shakes his head and says, "No it's fine, really."

Steve is standing now anyway, running a hand through his hair and glancing out the window. "Least it seems to have let up a little," he says hopefully. Of course Steve is the type to yearn for the sun. "I've been missing my morning runs," he jokes.

"Can't have you getting all unfit now, can we?" Bucky laughs. Slim chance.

He shows Steve to the door and leans on the frame as Steve fidgets on the step and stifles a yawn. "Thanks for dinner," he says.

"Yeah, that gourmet dinner I slaved over for a whole two minutes while I looked up the number," Bucky reminds him, and Steve just laughs.

"Well I had a good time, and the food was the best takeout I've had in a while. Steal me a menu next time you order, okay?"

"Will do," Bucky says, and then Steve looks up into his eyes and smiles and says,

"Okay then. Night, Buck."

He turns and jogs down the steps and into the rain, and Bucky says, to no one in particular, "Night, Steve."

 

That night, Bucky sleeps restlessly, Dave a small weight on his legs. He doesn't get nightmares too much anymore, once a week of he's lucky, but he hates the way they still leave him shaking and unsure of his reality. He jolts awake and can still hear the gunfire and the thumping in his chest as explosions split the air around him. He's shaking and sweaty, and then Dave is there, small tongue licking at his face and fluffy tail flapping against his good arm.

Bucky takes a deep breath and puts a hand up to bury in Dave's fur. The little dog stays close for the rest of the night, curled against his side, Bucky's fingers still wrapped around the golden fur of his back when he falls asleep.

 

Natasha is unfazed when Bucky hammers on her door the next morning.

"Good news," he announces, walking past Natasha into her hallway and veering off into the kitchen. Nat follows him and sits at the table while he opens her fridge.

"Thought you came out years ago, Barnes?" she says.

"Ha ha. Close, but not me. Steve. Sort of."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, oh yeah," Bucky says, taking a bottle of juice out of the fridge and spinning around to look at her. "Nat, come on. Be excited for me."

"Firstly, what do you mean, 'sort of'? And how do you know? Please tell me you didn't sleep with him."

"So what if I had?" Bucky asks, defensive. "But no, I didn't."

“Well, because you'd do what you normally do and turn all awkward and cautious and so unlike you it's actually quite terrifying, so that's good."

Frowning, Bucky says, "I don't do that."

"If you say so. Now answer the question."

"He told me. Well, he told me he dated someone called Peggy."

"Last time I checked, that was a girls' name," Nat says, examining her fingernails.

"Then he told me how he dated a guy called Sam."

"Sam and Steve dated?" Natasha says, looking up from her nails, suddenly interested.

"You know Sam?"

"Yeah, I know Sam. Man, I cannot see those two dating."

"Well apparently they didn't last long," Bucky says.

"I just can't see them as any more than friends," Nat muses, and Bucky shrugs.

"They clearly thought so, too." He grabs a glass from one of the shelves and pours himself a juice. "Want?" he says, holding up the glass.  
"Yeah, thanks. So dinner went well?"

"Well, the actual dinner was a shambles but the evening was pretty great."

"What happened to dinner?" Nat asks, with a type of morbid fascination.

Bucky explains about the pasta incident, and about Steve's unshapely but delicious pie, and Natasha laughs her head off over Dave and awww's over Steve's desert, and then kicks Bucky out of her house so she can go to work.

"Can I have your job? I want a job where I don't have to go in until midday," Bucky moans as he's shoo'd out the door.

"I don't pick my hours, and if I did, I would start a hell of a lot earlier than midday. Now out, and you're lucky I'm not keeping track of how much of my food you take every time you come over."

Bucky looks guiltily down at the biscuit in his hand he's just stolen from the jar on the counter, and skips out the front door with a backward wave.

 

Linda Tallot is smiling on Steve's doorstep when he opens the door. A little disappointed it's not Bucky with an armful of dog, or something less troublesome but still including Bucky, Steve forces a smile back. The rain stopped sometime the night before, leaving the world clean and new and sparkling with sun on the puddles.

Mrs Tallot is an older woman with greying hair and wrinkles around her eyes, a constant busybody who takes joy in giving small children biscuits and knowing the gossip of the entire neighbourhood. Steve manages to like her in spite of himself, but a little of her goes a long way, and Steve has had a long morning already.

"Morning Steve, dear," she launches in, handing Steve a piece of paper with 'Neighbourhood Bash' typed at the top. "Just letting you know there's a neighbourhood barbecue this Friday night. We have a few new people in the street and we should really talk more about the neighbourhood watch. Now you don't need to bring anything extravagant, maybe just a packet of biscuits or perhaps some juice, just whatever you can get your hands on, I know how hard you work on those drawings of yours, but it'd be great to see you there. Have you met James?"

"James?" Steve says, feeling a little steamrollered already.

"Yes, James, across the street from you. Just moved in?"

Oh, Bucky's real name. "Oh, of course, James. Yeah, we've met."

"Good, well I'm off to invite him now, so do I take it you'll be there?"

"Uh, this Friday?" Steve rubs a hand over his chin, trying to remember if he's made plans to be anywhere else. Unfortunately, he doesn't think he has. "Sure, I'll be there," he relents with a smile.

Linda looks pleased and pats his arm. "That's what we like to hear. See you then, Steve, dear."

Steve watches as she bustles across the street towards Bucky's place, and he suppresses a smile. Poor Bucky.

 

The lady on his doorstep is, to Bucky's amazement, still talking. She doesn't seem to have stopped talked since he opened the door five minutes ago, coo'd over Dave and then started on about the neighbourhood watch. He glances down at the piece of paper about the barbecue, and manages to hold back a grimace at the colourful comic sans title. His eyes stray from the paper up over the woman's shoulder and over to Steve's place.

Through the window he can see Steve himself leaning his shoulder against the wall watching them talk, holding a sketch pad and twiddling a pen. Bucky has a sneaking suspicion he's smirking.

The lady whose name Bucky forgot almost as soon as she told him leaves after a few more minutes, content as soon as Bucky gives in and says he'll come to the barbecue.

"Fantastic. Bring your wee dog, the kids will love him!" she enthuses, and Bucky nods obediently. She puts a hand on Bucky's arm, unfortunately not his good one, and the look of surprise that flashes across her face when she feels something unyielding under his shirtsleeve makes Bucky cringe. He holds out his other hand for her to shake, a pathetic diversion, but she recovers almost at once and takes his hand warmly.

"Nice to meet you, James."

He doesn't tell her to call him Bucky. "You too," he smiles back.

Bucky watches through the window, and as soon as she's bustled off into one of the other neighbours houses for a cuppa and a gossip, Bucky scoops Dave up from the couch where he's mauling the ears off one of his stuffed toys, and crosses the road to Steve's.

Steve opens the door before he knocks, and Bucky was right, that is definitely a smirk.

"You're alive," Steve says.

"Am I?" Bucky sighs, putting Dave down and stepping inside. Dave trots off to wreak havoc, and Bucky calls him back but is thoroughly ignored.

"It's okay, I'll shut the door to the studio, anything else he's welcome to."

Bucky follows him to the end of the hall and into a small, sunny workroom. The walls are plain but light streams through the big bay window and into the room, making the walls glow and the dust sparkle in the air. There is a bench and an easel, and paintbrushes and pens everywhere, and Bucky looks on in interest. The workbench along one wall is covered in drawings and sketches and paintings and little doodles, and he picks one up of a monkey unicycling across a tightrope, half-coloured and discarded on top of a watercolour of a little country cottage.

 

"Shit," Bucky breathes, picking up the watercolour as well. "Uh, sorry," he says, hastily putting them down as Steve glances back over at him. "I mean, am I allowed to look at them?"

"Oh, yeah go for it," Steve says. "It'll be nice to know someone other than the occasional three year old is looking at my work." He smiles wryly and Bucky moves along the bench, snorting at a picture of a pig in a tutu, smiling at a dog that looks a little like Dave covered in flour, and then he sees the edge of a portrait under a pile of papers. He pulls it gently out from the pile and his eyes widen and he stares into those of a beautiful, curly haired woman.

Steve is watching him, looking a little embarrassed, and Bucky turns to him with his mouth slightly open. "Damn," he says, and Steve smiles.

"Yeah, she's something. Uh, that's Peggy, by the way. I think I mentioned her."

"Yeah, you might've. And actually, I was commenting on the drawing, not the subject. This is amazing, Steve."

"For all you know, it looks nothing like her," Steve says, but he's smiling and turning pink, and Bucky lays the picture reverently down on the bench.

"Sure, but colour me impressed anyway."

Steve is still smiling and moving towards the door, and Bucky reluctantly follows, glancing back at the pretty little room with its drawings and yellow light and wooden easel.

Steve gestures to his couch and Bucky sits, throwing an ankle up over his knee and letting his head fall back on the cushions.

"Does she always...?"

"Talk your ear off?"

"Get you to agree in the hope she'll stop talking," Bucky clarifies.

"Yeah, pretty much," Steve agrees. "She's definitely a talented talker."  
"You're going, then?" Bucky asks

"Yeah, why not. I'm this close to being on the neighbourhood watch panel," he says holding up a thumb and forefinger, slightly apart, and raises his eyebrows earnestly. Bucky looks at him for second and then cracks up laughing.

"Well, wouldn't wanna hinder your climb up the social ladder."

"But really, you should come. The people in the street are really nice, plus, I mean, food." Steve is smiling at him and sitting down in the armchair across from him, and fuck it, of course Bucky's going now.

"Well, I said I would. And hey, if you're gonna be there, how bad can it be?" he says with a grin. Steve just laughs and tries not to turn a darker shade of pink.

"Bring Dave. Might be kind of fun."

"Oh believe me, fun won't be the word," Bucky grimaces.

"Maybe a small child will snatch him up," Steve smirks.

"I would thoroughly endorse that," says Bucky. "In fact, I would pay the child who entertained him for longer than five minutes."

"Put up a notice, kids will come running."

"Might just do that. Last night he ate the final corner of the doormat. I think that might possibly be the last thing in the house he can wreck, so I might have to start bringing him 'round here," Bucky says with a sly grin.

Steve laughs. "Don't you dare."

Bucky's phone buzzes then, and he glances down at the message from Natasha.

Need a big favour. Can you bring the brown dossier off the kitchen bench in to work? I'll buy you lunch.

Bucky sighs. "Sorry, Steve, I gotta run. Natasha forgot something for work and apparently I'm her almost-live-in slave."

"No problem, I should get back to drawing anyway. Been a slow day. A million things to do and I don't have the motivation to do any of them," Steve says with a sigh.

Bucky gets up from the couch and lets Steve lead him to the door, giving him a pat on the arm as he goes through. "See you at the neighbourhood thing," he says with a smirk, and then walks off across the street. Steve watches him go, the casual sway of his hips and hand running carelessly through his hair as he walks. Suddenly feeling more in the drawing mood, Steve goes back inside. And if it's the outline of Bucky's hair, the curve of his smile that Steve doodles on his sketch pad instead of the little pigeon who couldn't fly, nobody was any the wiser.

 

The folder is right where Natasha said it would be, and Bucky grabs it and locks the door behind him, replacing the spare key back under the pot plant.

When Bucky sticks his head back into his own kitchen, Dave is pushing his breakfast around the floor, scuffling along trying to chase the little biscuits as they skid around the tiles pushed by his nose. "Don't wreck the house," Bucky tells him uselessly, before locking the door and getting into his car.

On the radio, every song reminds him of Steve. He draws the line at "...don't want none, unless you got buns, hun." He jabs a finger at the power button and thankfully is almost there.

He meets Nat in the cafe across the road from her office building. She's sitting at a table near the back of the room, and Bucky drops the dossier into the table and sits down opposite her.

"Thanks for this," she says. "I was in a rush this morning, slipped my mind, you know." She sighs. "God, I need a coffee today."

"Rough day?"

"Could say that. Well, technically I shouldn't. Classified," she says with a smirk.

"Yeah yeah, I don't think a progress report on your caffeine levels is the government's top security priority, don't worry."

"You'd know," she says.

"Yeah, well. Not anymore."

Nat studies him for a moment, looking at him in that way that means either a deep psychoanalysis is coming, or if she's feeling nice, cheer up food. Bucky hopes its food today.

"Want something to eat?"

Bucky silently cheers. "Well since you offered so elegantly in your text, I can't say no."

Natasha rolls her eyes and gets up to order. "What do you want?"

"Cream cheese bagel," Bucky grins up at her, and she screws up her nose.

"How long do you expect to keep that body of yours?"

"Sorry Nat, not my fault I was gifted with extraordinary good looks."

Nat just shakes her head and saunters over to the counter. She returns, brandishing a bagel and two cups of coffee, a few minutes later. Bucky has folded a napkin into something vaguely resembling a mutated swan when Nat puts one of the cups and the bagel down in front of him and sits down.

"And how're things with Steve?"

Bucky shrugs, taking a bite out of the bagel. "Good. He's nice."

"Oh come on, you're smitten. You went all red."

"Didn't," Bucky says through a mouthful of bagel, going redder. A glob of cream cheese drops off the bagel onto the mutant swan, and Nat wrinkles her nose slightly.

"If you say so. Just, go carefully, okay? Don't... overwhelm him."

Bucky swallows indignantly. "What do you mean?"

"Not like that, you know what I mean. He's the quiet type. Nice guy, keeps to himself. He draws for kids’ books, James. His idea of a wild night is probably going out for a drink with Sam and not getting in until eleven. Your idea of a wild night is waking up in a different city."

Bucky just snorts. "That was one time."

Nat smiles in spite of herself. "That's still my number one favourite phone conversation of all time."

"Oh, shut up."

"No really, priceless." She takes a sip of her coffee and sits back in the chair. "Look, I'm not saying don't go for it, just go for it slowly."

"Well, thanks for the concern," Bucky says, barely managing to keep it this side of sarcastic.

They're quiet for a minute, and then Nat says quietly, "I think you'd be good together."

Bucky looks up at that, to check Nat is serious. She's the best judge of character he knows, and for a second Bucky doesn't know what to say. He just looks at her, and she raises her eyebrows at him.

"Thanks," he says finally, and crams the last bite of bagel into his mouth.

Nat snorts, and then taps the top of the dossier still on the table between them. "Trusting you didn't look in this?"

"As if. You probably have some kind of device in there that takes a picture of every person who opens it. I'm not in the mood to go on the run, thanks. I have a good thing going right now."

"Wise," Natasha says, and picks up the folder. "I have to get back to work, but it's Lasagna Thursday tonight. Steve asked if we could invite you. And Sam will be there."

Bucky's stomach does a strange little churn at the idea that Steve thought to invite him, and then another at the prospect of meeting the illustrious Sam. He gnaws on his lip for a second, and then nods. "Yeah, sure. Your place?"

"Six o'clock," she says, standing and tucking the dossier under her arm. "Try not to lose an arm while I'm gone."

Bucky chokes on his mouthful of coffee and turns to chuck the mangled paper swan at Natasha's retreating back. It floats uselessly to the ground, and Bucky huffs a laugh and drains the rest of his cup.

 

Steve is standing where Sam left him five minutes earlier, staring at the blank space of the wall in front of him and wondering where to start. It's always the hardest part, starting, he thinks.

"Come on man, just go for it, you're not gonna ruin it. We got plenty of white paint left over if you do."

Sam comes over to where he's standing, hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. Steve laughs. "I just don't know where to begin," he says. "Too many ideas."

"Can I see the plan again?" Sam asks, and Steve pills a piece of paper out of his back pocket and hands it over. It's a photocopy of a drawing, in colour, of the wall how it will look when Steve's done. The background shows a train on a track, men in uniform running beside it. The sky is a deep red fading into a subset above the train, and closer to the foreground there are a hard hat and a worn pair of boots. Right at the front is a civilian man shaking the hand of a soldier, a little girl peeping out from behind the man’s legs, a little American flag fluttering in her hand. The empty space around it holds dozens of faceless soldiers, men and women, soon to have the faces of those consenting who attend the various support groups at the VA. That had been Sam's favourite part.

"Start with the train," Sam says, and Steve nods.

"Yeah, I think I will."

Sam nods and hands the paper back. "I gotta go lead a group. You need anything?"

"I'm good, thanks Sam. You're coming to Lasagna Thursday, right?"

"Wouldn't miss it. That, and the chance to meet your new man," he grins slyly.

"He's a friend," Steve protests, and Sam laughs.

"Yeah, we'll see."

"Be nice," Steve says to Sam's retreating back as he leaves the room. "Don't scare him!"

"I'm offended you'd even think that!" Sam yells back, and Steve smiles and picks up his chalk.

 

It's a couple of hours later before Sam wanders back in. Steve doesn't hear him at first, is too wrapped up in his work, and he jumps when Sam whistles.

"Damn," he says, coming up behind Steve and looking at up the wall. Steve has mapped out the mural in dark chalk, sweeping lines and smudges here and there where he's rubbed something out and gone over it. Steve has chalk marks on his face where he's touched his face with blackened fingers.

"You ready to go?" Steve asks, and Sam shrugs.

"Whenever you are."

Steve looks at his watch and sighs. "Yeah, I've done all I can do today. And Nat's expecting us at seven."

"Well, that gives you an hour and a half to clean up," Sam smirks.

"Clean up?"

"You got a little something on your face," Sam explains, and Steve puts his grubby hand up to rub at his nose. "Yeah, now it's worse."

Steve pulls a face and starts packing up his chalk.

 

Bucky and Dave knock on Nat's door at three minutes to seven. The door opens and Nat deadpans, "Oh good. You brought the hell-spawn."

"Nice to see you too," Bucky quips before u clipping the lead and releasing Dave into the hall.

Dave trots into the kitchen and Bucky hears, "Hey, buddy!" in a voice that sounds a lot like Steve's.

"Steve and Sam are here," Natasha tells him unnecessarily. "Shoes," she says looking down at his feet, still a little muddy from the rain over the last couple of days. He rolls his eyes and takes them off

Bucky follows her into the kitchen, where Steve is crouched down by the fridge, also in his socks, rubbing Dave's ears and talking to him like he's a small human child. He looks up at Bucky and smiles. "Hey, Buck."

"Hey," Bucky says, puts Dave's lead down on the table then takes off his jacket and hangs it on the back of a chair. "How's it going?"

The guy that must be Sam is watching him from the other side of the table. Bucky takes in dark skin, nice clothes, clean shoes, handsome face, and holds out a hand. "Hi, you must be Sam."

"That's me," Sam says, taking Bucky's hand and shaking it. He doesn't even look at Bucky's arm. Perhaps Steve filled him in? With Bucky's arm on almost full display in his t-shirt, he can't have not noticed. "Nice to meet you, James," he says with a grin.

"God, no, only people I don't like call me James. And my mother. It's Bucky."

"Hey," Natasha says indignantly. "I call you James."

Bucky raises an eyebrow. "Yeah, my mother."

Sam laughs. "Should we perhaps give it a couple hours to make sure you do like me?"

"Nah, if Steve likes you I guess you gotta be okay."

From behind Sam, Steve tries to bite back a smile.

"How did you get that nickname, anyway?" Steve asks.

Bucky pulls a face. "My middle name's Buchannan. Never liked James. My uncle starting calling me Bucky around my third birthday, I think he had a friend in school who went by it or something, and I guess it stuck."

Steve nods, and Sam says, "Man, I wish my nickname had stuck."

"What was it?" Natasha asks as she steps past Steve and rummages in the fridge for something. Steve picks up a jar of tomato paste off the counter and hands it to her.

"Falcon," Sam says, faux-wistful expression coming over his face. "I mean, I'd tell you why, but it's classified."

Natasha smirks and Steve and Bucky groan in unison, and then look at each other in surprise.

"Does he do that a lot?" Bucky asks, and Steve nods.

"Nat does it to you, too?"

"Only every second day," Bucky agrees, and Steve grins.

"Look at that," Nat says, "they're bonding over their shared jealousy."

"Don't think I'm cut out for the Special Forces, luckily," Steve says, and Bucky just rolls his shoulder and looks at Nat. She smiles apologetically and goes back to doing something complicated with some sheets of pastry.

"What about you, Steve. Ever had a nickname?" Bucky says, steering the conversation back to safer ground.

"Kind of," Steve replies. "I mean, it was a title rather than a nickname. I was captain of the football team, so it was Cap."

"How appropriate," Sam snorts, and of course, Bucky thinks, of course he played football.

"Cap isn't so bad. Very manly," Bucky jokes, and Steve laughs.

"Considering I didn't actually grow from about the age of ten until I was sixteen, eventually being big enough to even make the football team would have been enough for me. Captain was a lucky extra."

"You should see pictures of him as a freshman," Sam says, cracking up at the memory. "You wouldn't know it's him."

Steve's gone a little red, grimacing but not looking like minds too much, and yeah, Bucky would really like to see those photos.

Nat is still layering bits of pasta and various vegetables into an oven dish, and Bucky wanders into the kitchen to watch. "Can I help?"

"Given your track record with pasta?" Natasha says, and Steve snorts with laughter from where he's still leaning on the fridge.

"That was not my fault, that was Dave," Bucky protests, and Steve is still smirking.

"Really, I'm fine," Nat says. "Where is Dave anyway, can you go make sure he's not eating my house?"

"Oh, shit," Bucky swears, having forgotten Dave was even there.

"Come on," Steve says, and Bucky looks up, surprised. "He can't have got into too much trouble yet." He smiles at Bucky and pushes off the fridge, and Bucky obediently follows him out of the room, grabbing the lead off the table and ignoring Nat's knowing smile.

A quick search reveals Dave eating a toilet paper roll in Nat's upstairs bathroom. Bucky sighs and tugs the roll off him, clipping the lead back on and shooing him in front of him out of the bathroom. Steve's still standing in the hall at the top of the stairs. "Maybe you should let him keep it. Might keep him out of trouble."

“I highly doubt that," Bucky replies, and then sees a smudge of black at the edge of Steve's jaw. He steps forward, frowning, and Steve's eyes widen.

"You have a..." Bucky starts to say, and before he can think he puts his hand up to rub at the smudge. Ink, perhaps?

Steve stays very still until Bucky's rubbed it all away, and when Bucky looks at him questioningly he says quietly, "Chalk."

They're standing close, toes almost touching in their socks on the worn carpet of the landing, and Dave perhaps sees that as some kind of written invitation. Bucky feels the lead around the backs of his legs, and apparently Steve does too, as they both look down in unison. Dave is looking up at them and panting, smiling if ever a dog had before, with his lead attached to Bucky's new arm and then wrapped securely around both of their legs.

Bucky gives the leash a tug, but that only makes it tighter. Steve is looking at him with his big blue eyes, and Dave is looking up at him with his stupid doggy grin, and Bucky really fights the bubble of laughter in his chest, he does, but it doesn't work. He bites his lip to try and control it but then Steve is laughing too, and Bucky lets his head fall forward onto Steve's shoulder, and Steve's hand is suddenly on Bucky's hip, and he thinks to himself vaguely that this is the first time they've touched since he shook Steve's hand the first time they met.

Bucky untangles the lead from his left hand and drops it to the ground, and seeming to sense freedom, or perhaps smell lasagna, Dave shoots off down the stairs and Bucky reluctantly steps away. Steve's hand on his hip goes with him, and Steve smiles at him before letting go and rubbing the back of his neck. "Guess we should go see if Nat wants help," he says, and Bucky almost laughs at how unlikely that is.

"Yeah," he says instead. "With Dave around there's no telling how wrong pasta can go."

Steve's smile turns conspiratorial for a second, and Bucky flicks a finger at his shoulder.

"Thanks for standing up for me on that, pal, not."

Laughing, Steve starts down the stairs. "You didn't need my help, you made a very convincing argument!"

"Yeah yeah," Bucky replies, following him down.

Natasha's opening a bottle of wine when they enter the kitchen, and Dave is up on Sam's lap at the table. Nat gives Bucky a look that says, "Well?" and Bucky gives her one back that says, "I don't know what you mean."

They eat sitting around Nat's kitchen table, Steve and Sam opposite Bucky and Natasha. Dave is tied to a chair leg with a little dish of leftover mince. He wolfs it down in seconds and then stares up at the lasagna, but everyone does their best to ignore it.

The lasagna is delicious, and Sam keeps them entertained for a while with stories from the VA. Bucky listens, interested. He knows he has to do something else with his life eventually, and he isn't much good for any of the things he was trained to do. If he thinks on it too long he just ends up frustrated and upset, so he doesn't tend to think about it at all.

Despite being oh so very classified, as Natasha and Sam seem quick to remind them, they do talk about the good old days. From what Bucky can gather, Sam was in the Special Forces, like Natasha, but a different division. He reveals that his area focused on air rescue, and Bucky nods, thinking, well that explains 'Falcon.'

"How did you get out?" Bucky eventually asks, not able to handle the curiosity. Steve looks down at his plate, and Nat is curiously silent when the question has left his mouth. Sam plays with a piece of pasta and then looks up and meets Bucky's eyes. Finally he glances down at Bucky's arm, and he smiles sadly.

"Guess we all lose something in our line of work, in one way or another."

Bucky nods, eyes not leaving Sam's, and some sort of understanding passes through them. Bucky knows what it feels like to lose. Not just a part of himself, because he did that well enough, but to lose his life, everything he worked for, everything he knew how to do and how to do it to survive. It's not a great place to be. He doesn't ask any more about it.

Sam breaks the silent tension of the table again. He sits back and looks around at them all and grins. "But who can be sad when the lasagna is this good?" Everyone sees through the obvious facade, but they humour him anyway, and Steve gives him a small pay on the shoulder when they've all gone back to their food.

"Today Fury clomped into my office and told me to do less paperwork. He said it was piling up on his desk and he'd appreciate if I would cut back, 'cause he's sick of drawing his own signature," Natasha smiles wryly. "I told him I'd try, and perhaps if I had more field work I wouldn't have time to do so much."

"How did that go for you?" Sam asks with a laugh.

"Quite well, considering. This afternoon I was given two more assignments and a follow up, so I think he took me as seriously as I meant it."

"A woman who knows how to get what she wants is a dangerous woman," Sam intones, and Natasha looks pleased.

"Aw, Sam. That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

Bucky and Steve share a glance, and Bucky looks away, smirking.

Sam is just beginning another story when Bucky feels a light tap against his socked foot under the table. He looks up at Steve opposite, and Steve is looking right back at him. Bucky moves his foot to tap Steve back, and a little quirk of a smile jumps up on Steve's face. For the rest of the meal, Steve's foot rests comfortably against Bucky's.

When they'd finished the entire lasagna, Natasha is commanded to stay out of the clean-up process since she cooked, and Sam shoos Steve out too.

"But I didn't cook? I think I handed her a jar of tomato paste?" Steve protests, and Sam pushes him out the door anyway. Bucky doesn't think he imagines the warning look Steve shoots Sam as he leaves.

Bucky collects up all the plates and starts rinsing them, and then feels Sam's eyes on his back. He puts down the plate and turns.

"Is this where you give me the 'don't hurt him' speech?"

Sam looks at him, amused. "Do I need to?"

"I don't know, will it make you feel better?"

"No, probably not. I wasn't planning on giving it, but I can if you like," he says with a grin.

Bucky snorts. "I'm alright, but thanks anyway."

"I'll give you a hand with the dishes though if you like," Sam jokes, moving to pick up the lasagna dish off the bench and take Bucky's place at the sink.

"That'd be a lot better," Bucky smiles.

They rinse and stack the plates in the dishwasher in comfortable silence, and then Dave gives a little yap from the table to remind them he's still there. Bucky unties him and gives him a quick pat, before he leaps up on the chair next to him and tries to get up on the table. There's nothing on the table anymore except a bottle of wine, but apparently it still smells like lasagna. Bucky grabs at the dog before he makes it up on the tabletop and tucks him under his arm. Sam laughs.

"That dog of yours is a menace and a half."

"Not technically mine," Bucky says. "He's my sister's. She gets back next week, thank god."

"Does he help?"

Bucky looks at him for a second, thinks of the nightmares, thinks of the way another presence helps him when he wakes and doesn't know where he is. He looks down at the ball of fur happily sitting in his arms, and gives his ears a quick scratch.

"Yeah, he does."

Suddenly Bucky is scared to give him up. He's scared to be in an empty house in the middle of the night, scared to have nobody to come home to. He hasn't been like that since the accident. He'd lived with his sister, therefore with Dave, for almost a year before moving to his new little house just across the fence, and he hadn't given a thought to being really alone.

Sam must see something in his face, because he comes over and gives Dave a pat and says, "Ain’t no shame in being lonely."

Bucky nods and opens his mouth, not sure what to say, so closes it again.

"You should come see Steve's art down at the VA sometime," Sam says. "He won't admit it but its damn good. Look in on a group, while you're there."

Bucky smiles at the obvious ploy, but Sam knows he can see through it too, intended him to, and Bucky is glad Sam doesn't think he's that dim. He appreciates that he's giving him an excuse, a reason to go that doesn't highlight his own weaknesses, and he's grateful.

"Yeah, I'll do that," Bucky agrees.

 

Steve and Natasha are sitting in the lounge when Bucky comes in with the bottle of wine in one hand and Dave under his arm. He puts the wine down on the coffee table and sits down next to Steve on the couch, placing Dave between them. He curls up in a wee ball and surprisingly behaves. Sam follows Bucky in, grabbing the swivel chair from Nat's computer desk in the corner.

"Your kitchen should be as spotless as we found it," Sam says to Nat, and she looks concerned.

"Well it wasn't very clean when I started so I don't know if that's a good thing or not," she replies.

They sit and drink and talk for a while, and then Nat's cellphone rings. She gets up and goes into the hall to answer it, Sam excuses himself, and Steve gets up and wanders over to the sliding doors that go out into Nat's back garden. He stretches and yawns and Bucky goes to stand next to him.

"Wanna get some air?" Pushing up the lock on the sliding door, Bucky gives it a shove to reveal the dark garden, air cool on his skin and a faint breeze. He steps out into the night and feels Steve follow him and then take a seat on the step by his feet. He looks down on the top of Steve's blond head and Steve looks up to meet his gaze.

"You alright?"

Bucky sighs. "Yeah, I’m alright." He sits down next to Steve and lets the cold air rush over his face as the wind picks up. Steve's leg is warm next to him and Bucky wants to put out a hand and take Steve's but he doesn't, not yet.

"Sam have anything incriminating to tell you? Do I need to do some fast talking to restore my honour?" he laughs.

Bucky shakes his head with a smile. "No, you're all good."

They're silent for a couple of minutes, and then Bucky says, "He lost someone, didn't he." It's a statement rather than a question.

Steve quietly replies, "Yeah," and doesn't elaborate. Bucky didn't expect him to.

"Haven't we all?" Steve says after a minute.

"You, too?" Bucky asks, mildly surprised.

"My dad," Steve replies, voice quiet in the cold night.

"I'm sorry," Bucky says, turning to look at him and pressing his leg a little firmer into his.

"It was a long time ago. I was a kid, grew up on an army base up north, my dad was a captain. He was killed in action a little before Christmas when I was twelve."

"Shit," Bucky breathes, and he sees Steve nod out of the corner of his eye. Then Bucky remembers Sam saying, "How appropriate," when Steve told them about his high school nickname. Bucky winces. "I'm sorry," he says again, and then he feels Steve's hand move at the side of his leg, and he moves his own to grab it.

"Me too."

Bucky thinks for a second he's glad he sat on Steve's left, and it's his good arm Steve reached for. He squeezes his hand and then they're startled by a noise behind them. Bucky looks over his shoulder to see Sam looking down apologetically at them.

"Hey guys, Nat's been called in to work, so we better head off," he says. Bucky reluctantly loosens the hold on Steve's hand and Steve untangles his fingers to look at his watch.

"It's almost eleven," he says, confused. "Work?"

"Classified," Sam says with a grin.

Steve sighs and gets up, holding out a hand to help Bucky stand. Bucky picks up the sleepy dog off the couch and follows Steve into the hall. Natasha is shoving on shoes out in the hallway, and she shakes her head and says, "I think this is Fury getting back at me for the paperwork."

They all walk out into the dark, Natasha and Sam to their cars, calling goodbyes and see-you-next-Thursday's, and then Sam and Natasha drive off and Steve and Bucky and Dave are left alone in the street.

"Can we walk you home?" Bucky says, and Steve laughs.

"Yeah, it's a long way, might be dangerous on my own."

They cross the road and wander up the path to Steve's door. Steve fumbles with his keys and eventually fits one into the lock and pushes the door open. "Do you wanna come in?" Steve says, and Bucky looks down at the dog who's falling asleep on his shoes. Steve follows his gaze and says, "Maybe another night. Better get this one home."

Bucky nods reluctantly, and they look at each other for a minute before Bucky says, "Right, well..."

And Steve says, "Yeah," pushes his hands into his pockets and shuffles his feet. Bucky sighs and smiles.

"Night, then."

He turns to go, giving the lead a little tug to wake Dave and get him moving. He hasn't gone more than a step before Steve says, "Bucky-" and Bucky turns back around, sees Steve's nervous lip bite and the way his hand is slightly outstretched as if to pull Bucky back, steps towards him, takes him by the collar of his shirt and kisses him.

Steve's lips are warm under his and Bucky feels hands on his hips, and he pushes into the kiss and feels Steve sigh and kiss back. They stand on the doorstep kissing until Bucky feels Dave's tail brush against his leg, and he pulls away. Steve's lips are red and his shirt is a bit scrunched up from where Bucky was gripping it, and his expression looks like he just got hit by a train. Bucky puts a hand up to smooth his collar down, and then quirks a smile.

"Night, Steve."

"Night," Steve replies. "See you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow," Bucky says, and then he goes home.

 

Linda greets Steve at the door of the little church hall at the end of their street.

"Glad you could make it, Steve, dear, come in." Steve steps into the hall, looking around for Bucky or Dave. Neither are within eyesight, and he tells himself Bucky won't not come.

He hasn't seen nor heard from Bucky since last night and all day he's been resisting the urge to go over there or ask Nat for his number or something. Chill, Rogers, he thinks. He's holding a packet of chocolate chip cookies as per her request, and she takes them and bustles off to put them on the table off to the side of the room.

Steve is beckoned over and drawn into conversation by a group of men talking about the state of the economy. He doesn't really find it all that interesting, doesn't contribute much, and keeps an eye on the door. He sees Bucky as soon he enters, badly concealed look of apprehension on his face, Dave on a leash, and Steve tries to catch his eye. Before Bucky's finished scanning the room however, Linda is at his shoulder and gesturing around the room, smiling enthusiastically. Bucky nods and smiles back, and then someone says, "What do you think Steve?" and Steve suddenly has to figure out what it is he's meant to have an opinion on.

It's another half an hour before Bucky is released from Linda's clutches. She parades him around the room, introducing him and offering him food, and Steve remembers how that feels. Clearly Bucky is a hit, Dave even more so. Children coo over Dave, women coo over Bucky, and Steve keeps an eye on them from across the hall. Eventually, Linda deposits Bucky at the edge of the group Steve's standing in with a quick, "This is James, he's just moved in. I need to go and organize the chairs, I'll leave him in your capable hands." Everyone nods and smiles, holding out hands for Bucky to shake.

Bucky glances over at Steve in relief, and then shifts around the group to stand by him.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," Steve replies, and it's awkward for all of three seconds until Dave starts to eat Steve's pants.

Steve snorts and bends down to pick him up, taking the lead off Bucky. "I'll take him for a while if you wanna get something to eat?"

"Thanks, man. You want anything?"

"I ate before I came but I'll come check out the drinks," Steve says with a nod, and he excuses them from the discussion and they head towards the food table.

Bucky goes straight for the biscuits Steve brought, and Steve smirks as he stuffs a whole one into his mouth and then takes another.

"Do they do this often?" Bucky asks through his mouthful of biscuit. "I could get used to the food. Linda told me since it's my first time I shouldn't bring a thing."

Steve laughs and shrugs. "Every few weeks. Every time someone decides there's something the whole neighbourhood needs an opinion on, parking issues or a loud dog or, like today, the neighbourhood watch."

"Kinda nice," Bucky says. "I've never been to a neighbourhood meeting. Or had neighbours, actually."

Laughing, Steve reaches for a cup of juice off the table, balancing Dave in one arm and taking a sip. "Well," he says, "looks like this one is about to kick off."

"Would everyone please take a seat?" Linda calls from the little stage at the end of the hall. There's a few seats and a podium set up on it, and a lot of seats at floor level looking up at it. Bucky snags another biscuit and Steve leads them to the row of seats at the back of the room, and sits down with Dave on his lap. Linda waits until everyone is seated, and then launches into a passionate speech about the benefits of a neighbourhood watch.

The discussion goes on for almost an hour, with Bucky and Steve sitting quietly at the back, just listening. Occasionally Steve leans over and whispers something into Bucky's ear about someone who's talking, who's fallen out with who over a boundary fence, whose kids threw eggs at someone's house and created a year-long feud. Bucky will sometimes lean over and mutter something sarcastic about what someone has said, or tell Steve exactly where he thinks Mr Percival can stick his fence.

Eventually Linda calls the meeting to a close and everyone gets up and goes back to mingling. Steve has just handed Dave back to Bucky when Janet Lacey from down the street comes over.

"Steve, you'll never guess," she begins. "I bought a book for my niece with your illustrations in it, from the little bookstore down on the corner of Clyde, it's brilliant, Gracie loves the pictures, especially the cat-" and Steve grins at her and asks what the title was, and then when he looks up, Bucky has been snapped up by Mr Bugle from down the street. Steve hasn't ever had much to do with him, but knows him to be a retired army corporal who, from what Steve can hear of the conversation with Bucky, "...spotted it on you a mile off, boy! What rank were you?"

Steve watches as Bucky is led away, one of Mr Bugle's firm arms on his back, and he turns back to look plaintively at Steve. Steve gives him a mock salute.

 

Bucky finds himself engaged in a good half an hour conversation about 'the good old days', wherein Mr Bugle does a lot of talking, and Bucky does a lot of nodding. Mr Bugle is eventually pulled away by his wife, a stout woman almost as bossy as himself. Bucky's tired, and his shoulder hurts, and Dave's leaping around like the spawn of Satan at the end of the leash when Steve makes his way over and gives him a smile. "Hey," he says.

"Hey yourself," Bucky grins back, and then sighs as Dave sees a small child walk past with a biscuit at a manageable height for snatching and tries to run after it, without a second thought to the leash. He reaches the end of the line with a small yank, and Bucky doesn't even bother trying to reel him in again.

"Having fun?" Steve ask.

"Yeah," Bucky says, nodding and widening his eyes in an unconvincing attempt.

Steve laughs and leans in to murmur quietly in Bucky's ear. "Wanna get out of here?"

And suddenly Bucky isn't tired anymore.

They make their way to the front doors of the hall, Steve stopping to say goodbye to people on the way. Bucky smiles and gives Mrs Tallot a wave as he follows Steve out the door, and she waves cheerily back.

It’s grown dark out, cool breeze picking up and ruffling Steve's hair as he walks, the trees of the avenue swaying above their heads. Bucky looks over at him, and Steve puts out a hand to halt him on the sidewalk. Bucky stops abruptly, and then Steve is stepping forward and kissing him gently. The trees are rustling over their heads, the cool air skates over their skin, and the dark swallows Bucky up as he lets his eyes fall closed. Steve is licking into his mouth and wrapping arms around his waist, and for once Dave isn’t tugging his way free of the leash around Bucky's arm. An owl hoots somewhere in the distance, and then the doors to the hall creak open and the sound of voices grows louder. Steve pulls away and grins, slipping his hand into Bucky's. "Movie at my place?"

Bucky can't hold back the bubble of laughter that's pushing at his chest. Steve's dorky smile is contagious, and can't remember being this childishly excited, this happy at the idea of spending time with someone. "Lead the way," he replies, aware he's hitting the equivalent of a kid being offered a years’ worth of chocolate on the gleeful scale. Steve doesn't seem to mind, because he glances back over his shoulder to check the people who just left the hall aren't too close behind, leans back in and places another quick kiss on Bucky's lips.

"Come on," he says, stepping back again and pulling Bucky into his side and down the road.

Steve lets them into the house, keys jangling in the door as he pushes it inwards. Bucky lets go of Dave's leash and waits for the door to close, at least, before he's backing up against it and pulling Steve with him. Steve goes with him, pliant under Bucky's hands. Bucky feels a hand slide into his hair, tilting his head back, baring his throat. Steve's mouth leaves his and he feels lips press to his throat, teeth scrape at his neck. He bites back a whimper as Steve pushes the whole of his body against his own, sucking a mark into the base of his neck and then moving back to kiss him again. Steve's heavy and warm and Bucky winds his fingers in Steve's hair, loses himself in the steady slide of lips on his.

A bark from the kitchen pulls them apart, and Bucky rolls his eyes. "It's like he can't make up his mind, does he want us together or not?"

"I don't care what he wants," Steve says with a smirk. "I just want you, minus that jumper, on my couch."

Bucky opens and closes his mouth in a wonderful impression of a fish, and Steve smirks. "I'll placate the dog."

And before Bucky can react Steve is moving away towards the kitchen, leaving Bucky breathless and gobsmacked by the door. What had Natasha said? Go easy on him? He can't wait to tell her that it might be himself that needs going easy on. On second thoughts, perhaps he won't tell her that.

Bucky tries to slow his breathing back down, and he hears a bowl being put down and a tap running in the kitchen. Steve says something to Dave and then there's the snap of the lead being unclipped, and then footsteps coming back towards the hall. Steve steps back through the doorway, closing it behind him softly. He looks amused to see Bucky still leaning on the door and walks the few feet back over to him. His hands fall to Bucky's waist and he nuzzles into his neck, and then murmurs, "I see where Dave gets his lack of obedience." 

Bucky is appalled at his sudden lack of witty retort, so he compensates by slipping his hands up the back of Steve's shirt and lightly scraping his nails down his back. Steve sighs into his ear, and suddenly Bucky's feet aren't on the ground anymore. Steve's hands are on the backs of his thighs, pulling him up to eye level and Bucky instinctively wraps his legs around Steve's waist.

"Now," Steve murmurs in his ear, teeth scraping his ear lobe. "Do we have any objections to moving to the couch?"

Bucky lets his head fall back against the door with a shudder as Steve rolls his hips into his and bites at his jaw. "You- I- fuck, no. No objections here," he manages.

God, you're sort of wasted as an artist, Bucky thinks as Steve steps away from the door, Bucky's legs still around his waist. The muscles in his arms are straining against his shirt as he holds Bucky up, and he's holding him with an ease that makes Bucky want to cry. Or tear his clothes off. Probably not both at the same time. He doesn't want to give Steve the impression that he's actually insane.

Steve walks them into the lounge and then the few steps to the couch, and deposits Bucky a little gracelessly onto the sofa. Bucky lands with a thud, and then Steve is crawling over him and kissing him again, and time seems to speed up and slow down and then stop altogether. Really, Bucky has no idea how long they lie on that couch, making out like teenagers, rolling each other over in a useless fight for dominance, laughing when Bucky catches his foot on the arm rest and almost falls right off the couch, not bothering to stifle their groans when Steve slides his hands up Bucky's shirt and Bucky bites at his neck. Bucky's arm is a little inconvenient, not as dexterous as his right, and he has to pay attention to where he's putting it, how hard he's holding Steve's hip or waist or arm, but Steve says nothing, treats it like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

Bucky is straddling Steve's hips, both hands woven into his hair, peppering kisses along his jaw and his nose and his eyelids while Steve laughs and squeezes his eyes closed, and Bucky catches sight of the clock. It's half past midnight. Steve must catch the look of horror on his face, and he twists his neck around and looks too, and cracks up laughing.

"God, when did it get that late," he says, sitting up. Bucky is still on top of him, and Steve wraps arms around his waist, nose to nose.

"Do you have to go?"

Bucky pulls a face. "I should. I don't want to-"

"I know. I don't want you to either."

Bucky wants to say he doesn't have to, fall asleep on Steve's chest and wake up tomorrow to his bed hair and coffee. But he knows when to call an end to a good thing. No use rushing it. He's only going across the street. He rests his forehead against Steve's, and smiles. "Come over tomorrow. Or the day after. Whenever you're free. We'll actually watch a movie and, I dunno, order takeout. Let's not kid ourselves and say we'll cook."

Steve's face breaks into a smile. "Yeah, okay. Tomorrow afternoon sometime?"

"Four?"

"Four," Steve repeats. "Perfect."

He kisses Bucky again, slow and careful, and this time when he pulls away, Bucky gets off and stands up, running a hand through his hair to smooth it down a little. He straightens his shirt and smirks as Steve does up the buttons on his own.

When Bucky pushes the door to the kitchen open, he sees Dave asleep on a tea towel with his head on his paws next to a dish of water. "Hey, pal, time to go home," Bucky calls to him, and Dave looks up at him, and for once does as he's told, standing up, stretching and trotting over. Bucky picks the lead up off the table and clips it on, stooping to pick Dave up. Steve is leaning on the door watching and he steps aside to let Bucky past and then goes to open the front door.

On the doorstep, he leans in and gives Bucky a quick kiss and a smile. "Night, Buck," he says, and then bends down to give Dave a kiss on the head. "Night, Dave." The little dog stares up at him adoringly. I know exactly how you feel, Bucky thinks.

"See you tomorrow," he say, and then turns to go down Steve's front steps. Steve stands in his doorway until Bucky gets across to his house and opens his own front door, and when Bucky turns and gives him a little wave, then he goes inside.

 

"Please, it's for five minutes," Bucky wheedles, feeling an astonishing sense of déjà vu.

Natasha isn't looking impressed, but she rolls her eyes and says, "Fine. But tell your landlord to come over less, it takes at least six months off my life every time you appear on my doorstep."

"Thank you," Bucky says, already passing the end of the leash over to her and taking off back down the steps.

Steve is just crossing the street over to Bucky's as he reaches the edge of Nat's lawn, and he waves and waits for him to catch up. "Hi," Steve says, trying to regain his hold on the box of beer he's clutching as well as the shopping bag in the other hand. Bucky tries to see inside the bag, and thinks it's something cake-like.

"Hey, Stevie. Good," Bucky says with a grin, tapping the beer, and then indicates the bag. "Good?"

"Cake. So yeah, good. And I didn't make it, so we're safe."

Bucky laughs. "Okay cool. Chinese and cake and beer sound okay?"

"Sounds amazing," Steve replies.

"Slight hitch, my landlord is gonna be here in a few minutes to pick up something from the shed, have a quick look around and make sure I'm not cooking meth in the basement or harbouring any stray dogs..."

"Dave?"

“At Natasha's," Bucky says with a nod towards Nat's house.

"Let's go and hide the evidence then," Steve laughs.

They go inside and move the leash and the water bowl, the dog bed and the fur-covered brush into a cupboard under the sink, and then there's a knock at the door. The landlord gives Bucky a clipped smile and nods at Steve, and Bucky introduces him, and then the guy bustles through the house to collect whatever it was he needed from the shed. Bucky wanders through into the living room and grabs his laptop, opening his movie collection and placing the laptop in front of Steve. "Choose," he says. "I'm happy with whatever."

Steve starts scrolling through the list, and the landlord appears back in the door to the kitchen. "All sorted?" Bucky asks, eying the spade under the guy's arm. The landlord nods and then his gaze comes to rest of something on the kitchen counter next to the fruit bowl. Bucky follows his gaze, and he just stops himself from swearing out loud. Dave's spare collar.

"Oh, that's not mine-" Bucky says quickly, and Steve looks up from the laptop. He looks at Bucky and the landlord, then over to where they're both still staring at the collar.

"Oh, yeah that's mine," Steve says quickly. "Wondered where that went."

"You have a dog?" the landlord asks, sounding interested.

Steve opens his mouth, closes it again, and then says, "Uh, no."

The landlord looks confused for a second, and Bucky fixes Steve with a look of horror. Steve seems to realise how wrong that just went, and goes bright red. The landlord nods, and takes a deep breath. "Okay, well I have everything I need, so I'll just-" and then he's gone, high tailing it out the door. Bucky looks at Steve, Steve looks at Bucky, and they crack up laughing. A minute later, when they're both gasping for breath, Bucky finally finds the capacity for speech.

"Why did you say no!?"

"I don't know!" Steve almost cries. "It was one lie too many!"

"You'd told one!"

"Apparently that's my limit!" Steve says, putting a hand over his eyes, and Bucky laughs even harder. He picks up the dog collar off the bench and comes around to Steve's side of the table, unclips it and loops it around his neck.

"Now my landlord probably thinks we have some sort of kinky sex life involving a dog collar," Bucky says, miming strangling Steve with it, and Steve tilts his head back to grin up at him.

"Woops?" he says, and then they're interrupted by a cough at the door. They both look up with the guiltiest expressions perhaps ever worn, and who else would it be, Bucky thinks? The landlord is standing in the doorway holding a piece of paper.

"Um, the, uh, your, copy of the last agreement you signed..." he stammers out, and Bucky and Steve just stare. "I'll just put this..." and he puts it down on the side table in the hall, and scuttles back out the door. Bucky looks back down at Steve's upturned face, and then they're both almost crying with laughter.

 

They go and collect Dave from Natasha's and stay for a while to chat, until Natasha gets a call from work. Then they go back to Bucky's and watch the movie Steve picks out, and they order Chinese and eat the cake first because they are adults and there is nobody to tell them not to. They watch a movie, and then another one, and Dave falls asleep on Steve's lap, and Steve falls asleep on Bucky's shoulder, and Bucky smooths a hand over Dave's head and Steve's hair and tries not to wake them up.

Steve stirs when the second movie finishes and the music for the credits comes on, and Bucky places a kiss on the top of his head. "You didn't miss much," he says. "He died and she got married and the cousin came out at the wedding."

"I knew he was gay," Steve mutters sleepily. "What's the time?"

"Almost eleven," Bucky says. "You have to go home?"

Steve stretches a little, moving Dave and waking him up. "I don't have to."

"Just yet, or at not all?" Bucky asks, running a hand through Steve's hair.

"Are you asking if I can stay?" Steve asks with a sly little grin, turning his head to look up at Bucky, and Bucky smirks.

"Might be."

"Then I guess I can stay," he says.

Bucky takes his chin in one hand and leans his head down to kiss him, soft and sure. Steve's lips taste like sweet and sour sauce, and Bucky licks the taste from them and then pulls away.

"Bed time?"

"If you say so," Steve smiles up at him.

Bucky picks Dave up off Steve's lap and tucks him under his prosthetic arm, taking Steve's hand with his other. He leads him through the dark house, not bothering to flick on any lights. The moon is sending a glow through his bedroom window, enough to see by, and Bucky places Dave down on the end of the bed where he curls up and goes back to sleep.

He steps in to Steve and takes his face between his hands, pressing their lips together and sighing into the kiss when Steve licks at his lips. Steve tucks his hands under Bucky's shirt and splays his hands out over his back, pulling him as close as possible, and Bucky wraps his arms around Steve's neck in the white glow of the moon through the window pane. They kiss lazily for a few minutes, and then Bucky pulls gently away.

"When I said we were going to bed, I didn't necessarily mean, let's go to bed. We could just, y'know. Sleep." He offers Steve a lopsided kind of smile, and Steve kisses him on the nose.

"I'm good with whatever. If you wanna wait, we'll wait. I'm okay with just sleeping tonight."

Bucky nods. "Okay, then. Let's try taking things slow. I've never done that before," he smiles wryly.

Steve laughs. "I'm all for taking things slow. I'm happy just to spend time with you."

How are you so fucking perfect, Bucky wants to say, but he doesn't. He just smiles, realises that the tension from his shoulders is gone, lets Steve kiss the smile off his lips and pull the shirt from his shoulders. Eventually, when they do fall into bed, narrowly missing Dave sleeping soundly on the end, they drift off to sleep with their bare legs tangled together and Bucky's back pressed to Steve's chest.

 

In the morning, Bucky wakes up to Steve's bed hair and coffee and misshapen pancakes.

The day after, Steve wakes up in his own bed to a crash from the hallway, and Bucky sits up next to him and groans, "Dave!"

The day after that, Bucky wakes up in his own bed alone, but he pulls on clothes and drives to the VA to see Steve's mural, and to ignore Sam's pointed glance and smug smile when Steve kisses him hello. The mural is amazing, and Bucky lets Sam usher him into a room where he sits at the back and listens to other veterans share stories, some about how hard it was back then, and some about how hard it is now. Bucky is surprised to relate, in little ways, to both. Steve waits for him and lets Bucky drive him home, and the next morning, they both wake in Bucky's bed to a knock at the door.

Natasha looks entirely unsurprised when Steve pads out into Bucky's kitchen in his socks and jeans, steals a bite of toast and then disappears again. She doesn't need to ask if Bucky's happy. It's obvious.

The day after that, Bucky's sister comes home. Steve goes over to say goodbye, and to be introduced properly, and then Dave is driven away with his bed and his spare collar and his water bowl, and then Bucky can't stand to be in his empty house so they go to Steve's and don't leave for the next couple of days. Steve draws, Bucky mopes and makes coffee and watches daytime television, and then Steve stops drawing and pulls Bucky up to bed and takes off his clothes and makes him forget he's upset for a little while. And by then, Bucky is almost okay again.

A month later, Sam offers Bucky a job mentoring groups. Bucky turns him down, and then the next day tells him yes. Steve throws him a party. Bucky's sister comes and brings Dave, and twenty minutes and a pair of chewed shoes later Bucky remembers how much of a menace he actually is. Natasha makes brownie, Steve buys beer, Sam brings wine, and halfway through the evening Linda Tallot drops by and informs them all of the 'Neighbourhood Shindig' on Saturday. Bucky wonders aloud how many words she has saved up that all boil down to 'meeting with food.'

The month after that, Bucky stops paying rent on his place and starts paying rent on Steve's. Bucky has a feeling the landlord is relieved to see the back of him, and the suspicions about his sexual deviancy.

The month after that, Steve watches Bucky sleep one morning from the armchair in their room. He doesn't know how to begin to explain it to Buck, why today always hits him harder than he expects. Even so, when Bucky gets up and goes to him, Steve tells him about the tank that exploded around his father, and the way the 'sorry' cards had rained through the letter box, and how the rain had poured down around him at the funeral. Bucky pulls Steve back into the blankets and then goes to make tea, and they don't leave bed that day.

That Christmas, Steve and Bucky adopt a puppy. She's a small, orange Pomeranian, with big ears and a big appetite and very nice manners. She doesn't eat shoes, doesn't doom their every cooking attempt, and doesn't wrap them up in her leash when they kiss in the driveway after the 'Neighbourhood Bonanza'. Sometimes Bucky still gets nightmares, and when he does, he reaches for Steve, and the dog, and both are there, every time. Sometimes Dave comes over for play dates.  


They call her Davina.


End file.
